Category: Retreat Groups

Letter Re: Questions from a Newbie–Where Do I Start?

Mr Rawles- I’ve been a reader of your blog for maybe the last nine months or so and I know I need to stop reading and get to doing something. So I was wondering if you could advise me on where I should start my preparations. I’m a city boy so I don’t have many of the skills that I think would be useful in a TEOTWAWKI situation. I don’t know how to shoot or farm or fix a diesel engine. While I could start buying equipment in order to be prepared, I think that the first thing I should …


Poll Results: Why are You Preparing to Survive?

Here is the first round of responses to this question: Those who are well educated enough to see a societal collapse of some sort or another in the making fall into two groups, the merrymakers and the preparers. The merrymakers don’t see life worth living post-SHTF, so they live it up now. We on SurvivalBlog are the preparers and have chosen to survive, but why? Our children? To rebuild civilization? Because the collapse will only be temporary? Because we can and we’re stubborn with a stronger than normal will to survive? The following is just the first batch of responses. …


Letter Re: Kanban: America’s Ubiquitous “Just in Time” Inventory System–A Fragile House of Cards

Jim, Having both worked in a hospital and worked for hospitals for the last 18 years I must loudly concur with “Mike the MD in Missouri”. As a service specialist in an un-named Level 1 trauma center I had access to almost every inch of the facility(s) including the warehouses where we stored our unused equipment and all the patient care products. Naturally I was able to assess the on hand stock versus the use and replenish rates at a glance. I was always amazed at how little there actually was for a hospital in a city of 150,000 people. …


Letter Re: Rural Retreat Matchmaking for Big City Dwellers

Dear Jim: Regarding retreats for big city dwellers, the more you read and think, the clearer it becomes: 1. Your retreat from the big city needs to be more than a distance than is convenient to travel on a weekly basis. 2. You really need someone there full time for security and maintenance. [JWR Adds: And to establish/develop gardens, fruit trees, nut trees, and livestock for self-sufficiency.] 3. One family (unless a humongous family by modern standards) is not enough folks to have a diversity of skills, keep good perimeter security, or defend in a TSHTF situation. 4. [Affording both] …


Two Letters Re: The Next Pandemic: Starvation in a Land of Plenty

Hi Jim: Perusing the “blog” the other evening, and, in response to your post of how certain members of our society react when normalcy is interrupted. I would like to relate an experience I had during an extended power outage, with my house being the only house within a two block area having power. As I am the end house on the cul-de-sac, my assumption is I am fed from the next subdivision. None-the-less, quite an eye opening experience. One Friday afternoon, after some pretty heavy storms, the power goes out. When one of the neighbors sees that I still …


Two Letters Re: How to Reply to “When the SHTF, I’m Going Over to Your House”, by Rolf in the Northwest

Jim: [In reply to Matt’s comments on Rolf’s original letter:] There are a lot of examples to illustrate why each person needs their own disaster preps, and the “insurance” example (“why should your fire insurance pay for my house burning down, or vice-versa?”) is a good one. Another is the “personalization” aspect: “Sorry, I’m a single guy; I doubt I’d stock your wife’s brand of feminine protection.” But people tend to think of “disaster preparations” as special or different in some way, because they are not “normal accidents,” and most people have a very hard time thinking outside a fairly …


Letter Re: Advice for a New College Grad on How Best to Prepare?

Hi Jim, I’ve been reading Survival Blog for a few months now, and I enjoy it. I really like how there is such a wide variety of topics to read about. I recently graduated from college with a four-year degree in computer science, and I am currently living with my parents until I get a full-time job. My question for you is this: What is a good way to start out in gaining survival/preparedness skills for someone in my situation? I’ve been doing some basic things such as reading a lot and learning some gardening skills. It does seem that …


Letter Re: Some Useful British Survival Web Sites

Mr Rawles, Here are a few British sites that may be of interest I found while looking at a fan site for an old TV series called Survivors which was written by Terry Nation, who also created Dr. Who for the BBC. The BBC Survivors series was made back in the 1970’s and while the technology and BBC aversion to realistic weaponcraft might make many of you readers weep (myself included) the themes and storylines of a group of middle class English people who survive a plague that kills all but 1 in 10,000 people are timeless. Along with Andre …


Survival Retreats, by Michael Z. Williamson

The subject of retreats is a recurring one. I thought I’d mention a friend’s that I have access to. It is within six hours of my location by both freeways and major secondary highways under normal conditions. I keep sufficient fuel on hand to reach it if need be. Our evac plan calls for taking both our vehicles (car and a large van) plus trailer, with any guests also convoying. This gives plenty of protection, and the ability to transfer vehicles if necessary due to road conditions or deadlined [non-running] vehicles. The location is off a well-maintained major road between …


Letter Re: My Journey of Realization–Getting Back on Track and Stocking Up

Dear Mr. Rawles, I just finished reading your seminal work, “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” for the third time in as many weeks. In addition, after some internet searching I’ve found your blog, and am in the process of reading everything that I can, when I can. After reading so much of what’s on your mind, I thought I’d share a little of mine. First, foremost, and most importantly, I want you to know that your book was instrumental in leading me back to God, the Father of our savior Jesus Christ. I won’t delve into the diverse ways in …


Letter Re: Are Your Neighbors Prepared? by Doc

Mr. Rawles: One point to note with Doc’s observations as a home repairman. I had my hot water heater short last week. If a repairman had come to my home, he would have walked past my garden and wood pile, had to go down the stairs past one ammo cache and rifle, 12 cases of Mason jars, around bags of old clothes waiting to be used for quilts, past various toolboxes, a chest freezer, lanterns, a grain mill and workbench, et cetera. But, instead, I went to the hardware store, bought a thermostat, and made the repair myself. I would …


The Ultimate Preparedness Community, by George L.

In Boston T. Party’s excellent novel, Molon Labe, the central character, James Wayne Preston, writes an inspiring letter on page 45 to his father outlining the issues he sees requiring separation to build a common community of free people in Wyoming. A better plan doesn’t require moving to one state for a political revolt. For those who are not Christian, please bear with me for a moment. You will quickly identify many of these organizational principles as essential for all group dynamics of individualists freely associating with each other to achieve specific goals. God’s plan of true Church organization does …


Letter Re: Survivalist Matchmaking?

Hi Jim, I remarried about three years ago to a woman from Vietnam whom I met through a friend I work with. We were introduced by my friend who is also from Vietnam. We became pen pals and conversed via e-mail and chat for almost five months before I went to Vietnam to meet her. She was a school teacher in Saigon and had never been married. She and her family survived the brutal takeover by the communist North Vietnamese after the U.S. government abandoned the South Vietnamese in 1975. My wife and her family made several attempts to escape …


Three Letters Re: Survivalist Matchmaking?

Hi James, The [Survivalist Contacts] page is still there, just hidden away in the site. It was attracting some major spamming there for awhile, so I removed any links to it from the main page. You can find it at this unlinked page. Regards, – John (of www.SurvivalistBooks.com) Jim: I saw a post on Survivalblog today where someone was asking about whether there were any ’survivalist matchmaking’ sites out there. I don’t know of any such site either (I tried Match.com and eHarmony before I met Commander Zero, and neither was helpful) but it seems to me that the fastest …


Letter Re: Survivalist Matchmaking?

JR: Can you recommend a place, business, web site, that offers the equivalent of Match.com, eHarmony.com, etc for preparedness minded folks? There used to be a place called patriotmatchmaker, but no more. Any suggestions? If you cannot find such a place, you might want to consider starting one as a income producing web site. Why not? You have the perfect target audience to do so. Thanks, – Boosters JWR Replies: Because our society is so litigious, I’m not inclined toward setting up such as service. I formerly directed folks to the Survivalist Contacts page at www.SurvivalistBooks.com, but that page doesn’t …